I sang a little while and then flew on.

thank you so much for that recollection of Neil Pear and Micky sharing the experience of each others performances. Surely Neil was impressed by Drumz as it has always been the most elaborate drum solo of any band.

One thing I'd be remiss in not telling you is the original version of Not Fade Away was by Buddy Holly, not the Rolling Stones.

The 3/3/92 show isn't anything overly special in terms of performance or setlist content. But noteworthy [to me at least] was that this was the first Dead show attended by Rush drummer Neil Peart, who was a guest of Mickey Hart. Neil gives a thoughtful assessment of the 3/3 show at the Omni:

Excerpt from Peart's book, "Traveling Music" --

"In 1990, Mickey had co-written a book (with Jay Stevens) on the history of drums and rhythm, artfully interwoven with his own autobiography and some of the Grateful Dead’s history, called ‘Drumming at the Edge of Magic.’ When [Peart's daughter] Selena was looking for a topic for a junior high science project, I suggested something I had learned about from the book, the “Theory of Entrainment.” The theory held that any two mechanisms, including humans, tended to synchronize their rhythms, to “prefer” them, as compared to beating against each other. Thus two analog clocks placed in proximity would eventually begin to tick in sync with each other, neighboring heart cells tended to pulse together, women living together often synchronized their menstrual cycles. And thus, thought Mickey, he and the other Grateful Dead drummer, Bill Kreutzmann, should (and did) link their arms before a concert, to try to synchronize their biorhythms with the Theory of Entrainment. Selena put two old-fashioned alarm clocks, with keys and springs and bells, beside two digital bedside clocks, and made a poster to describe the principle. I think she got a good mark.

"For my part, I was so impressed with the scholarship and artistry in the book that I wrote Mickey a letter of appreciation, and we began to correspond.

"Later that year, in 1992 it happened that both our bands were playing at the Omni Arena in Atlanta on successive nights, the Dead one night and Rush the next, and Mickey and I invited each other to our shows. On our off night I went to see the Dead play, accompanied by our tour manager, Liam, and what an experience THAT turned out to be.

"Liam and I arrived just as the show was starting, and gave our names at the backstage door. One of their production crew gave us our guest passes and escorted us to our seats – right behind the two drum risers, in the middle of the stage! Liam and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows as we sat down, and noticed that right behind us was the production office, with telephones, fax machines, and long-haired, bearded staff dealing with communications and logistics (presumably, though the production office is normally a room backstage, where such work can on APART from the concert), and we also heard there was a telephone line run through the crowd to the front-of-house mixing platform. Catering people walked across the oriental rugs that covered the stage, delivering salads and drinks to various musicians and technicians, even during songs, and meanwhile, the band played on. Lights swept the arena, reflecting off white, amorphous “sails” suspended above the stage, and clouds of marijuana smoke drifted through the beams and assailed our nostrils with pungent, spicy aroma.

"My familiarity with the Grateful Dead’s music began with their first album, back in ’67, when my first band used to play several of their songs, “Morning Dew,” “New New Minglewood Blues,” and “Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl.

"And they played and sang really well, too, augmented by the soulful keyboards and accordion of Bruce Hornsby. The drummers, Mickey and Bill, became an interlocking, mutually complementary rhythmic unit, right out of the Theory of Entrainment.

"Liam and I couldn’t see much of the “front line” guys, the guitarists and vocalists, because of the wall of amplifiers, but occasionally, on the stage-left side, the spotlights caught an unmistakable bush of gray hair that could only have been the legendary Jerry Garcia.

"During intermission, Mickey invited Liam and me to his dressing room in the familiar backstage corridors of the Omni (each band member had a separate room, which hinted at certain “divisions” among them; after Jerry Garcia’s tragic death, I read a story asserting that he hadn’t enjoyed touring very much, and when the others wanted to go on the road again, he responded, “What, they need MORE money?”). Mickey was a friendly, outgoing man, with an engaging smile and an intense, joyful enthusiasm for percussion. With all my African travels and interest in African percussion music, and Mickey’s musical explorations in print and on records, we shared a few things we knew and cared about, and had a good conversation until they were called to the stage to begin their second set.

"Liam and I returned to our center-stage reserved seats, and I noticed that not only did the band members have separate dressing rooms, but the wings of the stage were lined with small tents of black cloth, one for each of the musicians to retire to during the songs on which they didn’t play, and have some privacy. During an acoustic number in the second part of the show, Mickey disappeared into his little tent, then motioned for me to join him. We talked for a few minutes about drums and drumming, and I told him how much I was enjoying their performance, then he went back up to the riser and started playing again.

"Next night, the positions were reversed. That tour ('Roll The Bones'), we had a metal gridwork runway (dubbed the “chicken run” by the crew) about four feet high, running across the width of our stage behind my drum riser, where Geddy and Alex could wander while they played. During the show, I looked back and saw Mickey, under the chicken run, smiling out between its black curtains. He was just as close to me as I had been to him, and he seemed to be enjoying himself."

--

One doesn't normally associate these two polarly opposite acts with the other; however, there are so many uncanny [perhaps not-so-obvious] similarities between Rush and the Dead, which is made even more grandiose for me as these are my two fav bands of all time…

both GD and Rush had/have toured extensively for three decades (and neither were on some Rolling Stones Steel Wheelchair nostalgia trip at any point -- both bands' penchant for the road was ongoing).

in my estimation, Rush having loosened up live in more recent years probably has something to do with Neil’s exposure to Mickey Hart/the Grateful Dead (Rush have noodled spacey/jammy outros with "The Trees" and stretched out the end jam on "Secret Touch" during leg one of the S&A tour)

Jerry busting out Candyman (“roll those laughin’ bones”) the evening prior to Rush's "roll the bones" tour date is perhaps a reach but too tasty a coincidence to overlook.

On another fun note, I have a rare version of “Not Fade Away” by RUSH, styled more in the GD version than the original Stones’ one.
I also have a DAT master clone of the 3/4/92 Rush show at the Omni.

Grateful Dead. Rush.
The two greatest, most enduring bands of all-time.

Amen.